Little matter of Boggs’ residency was signal of big problems

A lie doesn't have to be huge before it matters.

When former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs next week enters an Alford plea to filing a false statement regarding her residency, some readers will ask: What's the big whoop? Why's that a crime?

Under an Alford plea, she will maintain she is innocent but will concede the prosecutor can convince a judge or jury she's guilty. The Alford plea gives defendants wiggle room so they can cling to a sliver of deniability. Of course, once the judge deems them guilty, they're guilty.

The crime alleged never sounded like it was much of a crime. Boggs lived in a house outside her commission district, but not far outside. But because she knew that was illegal (you sign a document under oath when you file to run), she orchestrated a cover-up, claiming she really lived in another home in the district. According to the woman who owned the home, Boggs wrote checks for "rent" and then demanded the money be returned. That's a cover-up.

Video footage shot by private investigator David Groover at the behest of her political foes (two unions representing police and culinary workers) would have nailed her in court. It showed her over the summer of 2006 hauling the trash in and out of the big home outside her district, wearing the fuzzy pink bathrobe that made it clear this wasn't just a sleepover. In her May 1 filing, she swore she lived in a much smaller house inside the district, yet neighbors didn't see her there until August and September 2006. That November, she lost her seat.

The next year, she was charged with four counts. (Just because there was a political motivation for the evidence gathered by a PI doesn't mean the information wasn't true.) When District Judge Donald Mosley ruled last November the video was admissible, Boggs was cooked.

Two counts involving payment of a nanny with her campaign account were rightfully dismissed. After she pleads to a misdemeanor, a perjury count will be dismissed under the plea bargain. Her likely sentence: a wrist-slap. After all, Boggs is gone from Nevada politics. The former Miss Oregon now lives in Texas.

Will anyone put any more energy into investigating Boggs, the ambitious (some say opportunistic) Republican who happened to be black and once was a contender for a job in the Bush administration?

There were so many things law enforcement officials were said to be looking into. There was the $5,000 suspiciously timed campaign check that made it into her private account when it shouldn't. Local investigators were chasing whether she actually paid for a $43,000 Volvo. Those two issues appear to be dead.

There were questions about a $100,000 land purchase in Arizona where she was loaned most of the money to buy the land, yet didn't report any such loan on her financial disclosure reports. Supposedly the FBI was interested in that. Maybe they still are, maybe not. Her attorney Gabriel Grasso didn't return my call to try and set that straight.

One early sign that suggested Lynette Boggs was willing to change her story to suit herself was 10 years ago when she was a Las Vegas city councilwoman and took a trip to her alma mater, Notre Dame, on a Station Casinos jet. She first said it was a social trip. But it hadn't been reported as a gift. So then she said the trip was political and an in-kind donation.

In 2004, she insisted her Summerlin home going into foreclosure was a bank mistake. We know now that's not true either: Her ex-husband confirmed that.

They weren't paying their mortgage, they were living beyond their means, hobnobbing with movers and shakers and trying their best to keep up with the monied class in Las Vegas -- a grave mistake when you don't actually have money yourself.

Politicians count on one thing: That nobody will check. That nobody will care enough to invest the time to prove rumors that certain politicians don't live in their districts.

But those who argue what Lynette Boggs did was not a biggie and others do the same thing without being caught might want to reconsider.

In her situation, there's a provable pattern of deceit.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/.